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 Surely you want to see what the stars hold for you? Alicia suggested.
He smiled wryly and put on his coat.  Maybe another time.
 Well, let me give you something from the shop. Has anything caught your eye? How about one of
these? She unlocked the display case and took out a turquoise glass pyramid, inside which could be
seen another smaller, pyramid in glass of a lighter hue.  Would this go nicely on your desk at work?
 It might go missing. You don t need to give me anything, really.
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 But I want to. Do take it, you ll find somewhere for it.
As the weather cooled towards Christmas, Jeremy came into work wearing one of those winter coats
with thick, padded horizontal bands of fabric like motorbike tyres going all the way round. These
insulating layers increased his girth, and on his way to the little back office he had to squeeze between
shelves of children s books on one side and encyclopaedias on the other. The fabric squeaked loudly as
it rubbed against the spines. Thinking that if he became wedged in the gap I would have to climb over
him to fetch the office scissors and cut him loose from his clothing, I suggested that he remove his
outer covering before he entered the bottleneck. He went into a huff at first, but could not resist
examining the spines of the books for signs of damage, and then said,  I suppose I ll have to do as I m
told.
He had been out of spirits the day before because Loyd Larcher was hesitant about coming to his
little Christmas party. The veteran author had another engagement, and doubted if it would be over in
time. Dale and I, Alicia, her girlfriend Muriel, and a few of Jeremy s business contacts were expected,
but Loyd s presence would have made the event special.
I cleared some space in the shop and put up folding chairs and a trestle table for snacks and bottles
of wine before going home for an early dinner. When I returned with Dale, Jeremy had put on a big
sweater with broad brown and yellow horizontal stripes. Judging he was in far too amiable a mood to
take offence, Dale said,  I know who you re meant to be, Jeremy, you re Mr Bumble the beadle from
Oliver Twist.
 I expect any minute Ben is going to tell me I m always bumbling around, Jeremy replied.
About twelve people, in all, attended. Dale struck up a conversation with Alicia about alternative
medicine, and soon we were exchanging opinions about acupuncture, hypnosis, herbal remedies,
vitamin pills, and how to choose from the hundreds of different remedies and tonics available.
We enjoyed a couple of hours chatting, eating and drinking. Then Alicia asked me if, when I was left
alone in the bookshop, I ever noticed anything odd, such as strange noises, tricks of the light, or
peculiar smells.
 Oh no, not really, I said.  Jeremy s customers aren t as decrepit as that.
 You know what I m getting at. These shops have been here for more than a hundred years, had
different owners, survived bombing during the Second World War. Traces of the past remain behind,
some are visible like that old-fashioned bell on the shop door, but others cannot be detected so easily.
Then Jeremy suggested she bring out an Ouija board she had recently acquired. He added,  This is a
traditional time of year for ghosts, so perhaps we should& by way of a little entertainment& 
Most of Jeremy s guests decided the time had come to leave, and I whispered to Dale that we might
do the same, but he said,  It s okay, let s indulge him, if we go hardly anyone will be left.
Alicia, her girlfriend, Jeremy, Dale and I were the only ones to stay on. We sat in a circle around the
Ouija board, an ornate affair with the letters of the alphabet in Gothic script. We were all to place our
fingers in grooves on a special hexagonal glass dish with a lighted candle in its centre. Jeremy switched
off the lights. The flickering candlelight made our faces appear mysterious, conspiratorial. At first the
glass dish in the centre remained immobile. We all waited. I turned my head and caught Dale s eye. He
was smiling faintly, probably thinking how silly we all were. Then the glass dish began to glide slowly
across the board. We audibly drew breath. Was one of us pushing it? It came to a halt above the letter
M. We all pronounced  M , our voices somehow achieving unison and harmony. Next the dish moved
off to the letter A, and as we all said  A it moved off to R, followed by L. A cold blast of air suddenly
blew out the candle, and at the same moment we heard books thudding onto the floor.
Jeremy turned the lights on again.  Oh blast, he said,  must have caught the bookshelf somehow
when I reached out for my glass of wine. Sorry everyone. Help me put them back, would you Ben?
Among the books I picked up was Dickens A Christmas Carol. It had fallen open at the page in which
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© Alan Keslian
the phantom first appears. Jeremy took it from me and read out the description of Marley s ghost.
When I sat down again Alicia fixed me with a questioning gaze.  Are you quite sure, Ben, that you
have never noticed anything otherworldly when you have been on your own in the shop?
 Oh, come on Alicia, said Jeremy,  don t overdo it. Let s have another try. See if the spirit world has a
message for us.
Dale put his hand over mine under the table.  I can feel a freezing draught coming from somewhere,
he said.
 Must be from the window at the back of the shop, can t have put the latch down properly, Jeremy
answered. This was an improbable explanation; that window had not been opened since I had been
working there. Once again we settled around the Ouija board in the flickering candlelight. Again, after
initial hesitation, the glass glided across the board, and we intoned the letters at which it stopped,  M, A,
R, L, E, Y. Marley! Suddenly we heard a determined rapping at the shop door. Behind the blind, a dark
figure was silhouetted by the glow of the street lights. The latch clicked.  Who s there? cried Jeremy in
alarm. The door opened wide and the temperature in the shop plummeted. A ghastly apparition,
weighed down by chains, floated into the room. As it crossed the floor it left an eerie greenish-brown
powdery trail behind it. I shrank back, afraid that some of this deathly deposit might rub off on me.
Dale clasped my hand.
I could not take my eyes from the spectre. In the meagre light of the candle I begin to make out its
features, which were, I began to realize, uncannily like those of Loyd Larcher. The mouth opened, and
it spoke in what was unmistakeably his plummy voice:  Terribly sorry, Jeremy, may have dropped a bit
of a clanger. He rattled his chains.  Could have sworn you said this evening was to be fancy dress.
Jeremy put on the lights. He, Alicia and Loyd grinned widely, all three obviously in on the joke, their
teeth shining like rows of tombstones on a moonlit night. They must, though, have been a little
disappointed that more of Jeremy s guests had not stayed on for Loyd s performance. Of course I had
not really thought, in my rational mind, that a ghost had been conjured up by the Ouija board, but for a
while my heart had been thumping all the same.
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© Alan Keslian
Eight
My help in Hatshepsut s Pavilion soon amounted to much more than minding the shop occasionally [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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